210 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



species, or at any rate used to be, but of late j'ears I have only 

 seen the Indian crimson bird at the Zoo, though the only other 

 Chinese tragopan known, Cabot's or the buff-breasted {T. cahoti), 

 has been exhibited of late and been not uncommon in the bird 

 trade. In captivity the Temminck's tragopan shows the same 

 tendency to nest high up as the Indian crimson species ; the 

 eggs are cream or buff colour closely speckled with brown. 



Western Tragopan. 



Tragopan melanocephalus. Jewar, Garhwal. 



The " Simla argus," as this tragopan is sometimes called, 

 the crimson bird being the " Sikkim argus" — both wrongly, for 

 as I said before, they are not at all like argus pheasants — is suffi- 

 ciently like its Eastern relative to be recognized as a close kins- 

 man at once ; there are the same white spots, the same general 

 size and form, and the same red on the neck and pinions, while 

 the ground-colour of the back is of a similar mottled brown. 

 But the under-parts are very different, being nearly all black in 

 ground-colour, thus enhancing the guinea-fowl effect, while the 

 face is quite bare and bright-red, although the bib is said to show 

 both red and blue, and is probably similar, when fully expanded, 

 to that of the better-known species. 



The hen is more of a true pepper-and-salt grizzle, with less 

 rufous in the tint, and on the under-parts is distinctly spotted 

 with white ; her hues are altogether colder than those of the 

 crimson bird's female, as one would expect from the sparseness 

 of the red colouring in her mate, which would really be better 

 called the black tragopan, from his dominant colour. 



The young cock, as in the other species, first shows his 

 colour on the neck ; he is said not to come into full colour 

 till the third year. This species runs a little larger than the 

 crimson bird ; it is found from the ridge between the Kaltor 

 and Billing rivers in native Garhwal, on the east, all along the 

 hills as far as Hazara, being known in the north-west as Sing- 

 monal. As the crimson tragopan is also called Monal in Nepal, 

 it seems that natives group the great pheasant-partridges, as one 



